


stones from the river styx

by alamorn



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, i'll believe Alice is dead when i see a goddamn body, slightly less than canon typical gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: He dreams a courtroom. It is filled with the people he has failed. There’s Zoe. There’s Justin. There, at the Judge’s bench, is Alice.





	

He dreams a courtroom. It is filled with the people he has failed. There’s Zoe. There’s Justin. There, at the Judge’s bench, is Alice.

He failed the audience — this case unsolved, that case solved too slowly, that one put away on lesser charges.

He failed the jury. Zoe. Justin. Ian. Mark. Jenny. Shenk. Mary.

Smiling down over all of it, Alice. Alice. Alice. In a white wig. In a black robe. Holding a gavel dripping blood.

The living and the dead sit as equals, in John’s dreams. And together they condemn him.

 

He gets up. He goes to work. Every night, there’s new faces in the audience.

 

Zoe sits the witness stand, bleeding. “I loved him,” she says. “And he scared me.”

A murmur from the audience.

Zoe, whole, in the juror’s box, nods gravely.

On the stand, she continues. “I loved him and he scared me and I left him, but he did not leave me. His work followed me home with a hatpin, with a gun. I died for him, and he does not leave flowers on my grave. He says no prayers for me. He keeps no pictures.

“I loved him, and he has forgotten me.”

A murmur of “Guilty, guilty, guilty,” fills the room.

Alice taps her gavel. “Does the defense have a response?”

He stands — the edge of the cliff, the edge of a building, distance yaws out beneath him — and puts his hands flat on the table. “Guilty,” he says. The word is a black stone in his mouth, river smoothed. He takes it out and places it on the table.

 

He gets up. He goes to work. He takes pills to help him sleep.

 

Ian sits the witness stand, eyes wild, hair wild, chest seeping red. “I sacrificed for him. I lied for him and covered for him, and alibied him, lay all my morals on the altar of his pride, of his anger, and he did not see me change.

“He did not check me the way I checked him, and he let me fall.”

“Guilty, guilty, guilty.”

Alice looks at him and he wants to protest — _I tried, I tried so hard, he spat in my face, he killed Zoe_ — but then he looks at Ian in the jury, the young man he met so many years ago, the young man who had his back until he didn’t, and he licks his lips and spits out a black stone.

 

He gets up. He goes to work. He leaves bruises on everyone he arrests.

 

Jenny sits the witness stand, hair wild, skin painted like a corpse. “He took me in and told me I was safe. He got me clean and taught me to kill. We scrubbed blood out of the carpet together. Then he sent me away and stopped taking my calls.

“He told me we were family and orphaned me again.”

“Guilty, guilty, guilty,” they chant.

“Guilty,” he agrees, and places another stone on the table.

 

He gets up. He goes to work.

 

Justin. A red bloom on his shirt. “I thought he was a good man. I trusted him. I believed in him. Even when it was impossible. I saved his life and his job, and he did not save mine. He let me be tortured. He let me die.”

There is nowhere to put the stone. The table is covered. John holds it in his hand.

 

He gets up.

 

Alice sits the stand. Her hair is wet. Water seeps from her nose, her mouth. She doesn’t say a word, just smiles.

 

He —

 

He puts black stones over his eyes.

“Oh, John,” he hears, as if from a great distance. “What _have_ you done to yourself?”

There’s no sympathy in the voice. Mild amusement.

Someone else removes the stones. Red hair.

“Alice?” he says.

Red lips. A necklace of uncut diamonds.

“Alice,” he says.

“Really, John, must I do everything myself?”

Clicking and scraping, so loud he has to cover his ears and squeeze his eyes shut. Unbearable pressure.

A pop.

He opens his eyes. Alice smiles and holds out her hand. Opens her fingers slowly.

A white stone sits in her palm.

“Guilty,” she says.

 

He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. His head throbs with what might be a hangover, but he can’t remember drinking last night. He sits up. He looks at his hands, half expecting a river stone. There’s only the deep crescents his nails have cut into his palms. One beads with blood.

His phone buzzes with a text. He scrubs the blood off his palm with his other hand, then grabs his phone from the floor.

It’s not Shenk. It’s an unknown number. It says, “Meep, meep.”

He gets up. He doesn’t go to work.

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about UK criminal court except that judges wear wigs, so. 
> 
> Join me on [tumblr](http://www.alamorn.tumblr.com) if that's your sort of thing.


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